


Moon Words

by parsnips (trifles)



Category: Harry Potter - Rowling
Genre: Animagus, Animalistic, Betrayal, Developing Relationship, First War with Voldemort, Frottage, Kissing, M/M, Marauders' Era, Moon, Scent Kink, Scents & Smells, Sexual Tension, Suspicion, Trust, Werewolves
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-02-09
Updated: 2005-02-09
Packaged: 2017-10-11 08:30:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,415
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/110410
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/trifles/pseuds/parsnips
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><em>"Wouldn't Sirius have told you they'd changed the plan?" --"Not if he thought I was the spy, Peter," said Lupin. "I assume that's why you didn't tell me, Sirius?"</em> (PoA) Pre-series.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Moon Words

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted 2.9.05 at pornish_pixies.

  
Someone was passing information. Everyone knew it. You couldn't walk down Diagon Alley without hushed whispers following, glances from under hat brims, slight turns of the shoulder just before you stepped past.

That was Sirius's experience, at any rate. Then again, Sirius always walked with Moony. Maybe the whole werewolf thing wasn't as secret as they'd hoped. Maybe you could look at a person and know they held a secret. Maybe all the witches and wizards in the world could look, and know, and point and whisper and turn away. Maybe it was a talent Sirius didn't have.

"You're quiet today," Remus said. He stepped up to the alley entrance of their flat and magicked the locks open. Sirius kept an eye on the street, watching for... spies, he supposed.

\---

James had asked Sirius to be his and Lily's Secret-Keeper. What were the other choices? Choosing Dumbledore meant never seeing any school friends again -- or at least for a few years. They hadn't wanted that. Peter'd been almost pathetically grateful when James turned Dumbledore down. Wormtail liked Remus fine, and Sirius himself was probably immortalized as some idol somewhere in Peter's flat, but James represented the middle ground, all high up but still perhaps attainable. Or some such rubbish. They'd gotten plastered after their seventh year Yule Ball and some very weird things had been said. When James had decided he wanted a friend to be Secret-Keeper, Peter'd felt he was in the running.

James had met with Sirius in an upper room of The Three Broomsticks. Rosmerta's personal parlor had a private, protected fireplace for discrete Flooing, something which would've been funny if there hadn't been Muggle World War II black-out shades on the windows, a Muggle radio next to the Wizard's Wireless, and an old, tired look on Rosmerta's face when she'd greeted them in the room. Sirius was supposed to be in London, waiting for Remus in Flourish &amp; Blotts -- James was supposed to be... somewhere else. James had sat Sirius down after Rosmerta'd left them to it, and said, "I need to ask you a favor."

When it was all done, and nods and assurances and promises had been made, Sirius stood, fingered the stitching on the black window shades (rough thing, felt like it was sewn with bits of twine, sharp against the skin) and said, "Why not Remus?"

\---

Sirius paid rent on the flat. They'd expected to get barely the funds for a hovel outside London, but the family had been unexpectedly kind to Sirius. An account had been set up, galleons had been parceled out, and he and Remus lived a hell of a lot better than most post-grads did right out of Hogwarts.

He'd done the equivalent of taking the money and running. He hadn't really considered _why_ he'd been gifted with it. Things just happened, particularly to Sirius. Questioning rarely did much beyond give him a headache.

"Did you find what you were looking for?" Remus asked. He was unpacking groceries from his pocket and expanding them when he set them on the counter. Moony liked to do his own shopping. Tomatoes, bunches of herbs, fresh ground meat wrapped in paper just beginning to soak through--

"No," said Sirius. "Didn't have quite the right thing." He joined Remus at the kitchen counter and tried to concentrate on being himself. "Bloody bookshop never seems to have any of the recent American texts."

Moony glanced up from his efforts at putting away the food. "Still trying to find 'Transforming Creatures'?" He put his arm around Sirius's waist and tightened it lightly. "Very good of you, but you only saw the reference once. I'm convinced it was a misprint of some kind."

It didn't do to think at times. Sirius let himself lean into the half-embrace, let himself press his face against Remus's neck, let the scent of Remus's skin just at the hairline touch the part of his mind that was forever Padfoot.

**hot city air. soap. winter savory. sweat. sex. fur. moon.**

Scents meant different things to dogs. There was no human perception of "moon" outside of the visual and, for some, the kinesthetic. But **moon** was intrinsic to Remus, smelling like lycanthropy and animagi, the Shrieking Shack and friendship, pain and blood and sadness and stark white light... It was only one of a thousand things Sirius had begun to understand after his first transformation. A part of him always wondered how many of those things Remus understood as well, and how many more things might exist in a werewolf's world than in a simple dog's.

Only recently had Sirius realized that there was no smell that formed the word "betrayer" in a dog's mind.

Simple, no better word for it. He was simple.

Remus turned his head slightly. His lips half-touched the rise of Sirius's cheek, and he murmured, "It's not so bad, Padfoot. Don't let it worry you." A lie, but such a nice one. Sirius didn't move, didn't pull away. Remus put down the herbs -- yes, rosemary, marjoram, and there was the winter savory -- and slowly turned to rest his hip against the counter. He moved his arm as he turned, the hand stopping just above the back of Sirius's hip, a warm weight that held without restraining. Remus put his other arm around Sirius, as carefully as if handling potions glassware, and rested the tips of his fingers, the side of his hand, low on Sirius's back. Remus watched him. The kitchen window lit Remus's face with a mellow north light. Sirius could feel both their heartbeats.

It was such a new thing between them. So new they hadn't even said to one another that there was something different going on in their movements around the flat, their play in animal form. They were separated by inches now, still just a gesture, a very... normal gesture that could be broken away from without ruining anything. Without upsetting the balance. There were groceries and books and James's answer in the back of his mind, so Sirius would just smile and turn, Remus would smile and turn, and then it would be the same again--

Sirius shifted, just the smallest bit, toward Remus. Remus's hands followed, didn't draw him any closer, but he shifted his own weight forward as well. Sirius could hear the shallow in and out of Moony's breath, the rustling of the edges of their day robes. Sirius looked down, raised his hands and lightly touched the bend of Remus's elbows. He drew his hands up, eyes following their path, the feel of serge beneath his fingers. When he reached the shoulder seams, the stitch strong and even, he and Remus both stepped closer, the air getting hot like city air between them, robes pressed together, strands of black hair and brown touching one another's flushed skin. It was still plausibly a thing of friendship.

Sirius wasn't sure what they had was friendship. He brushed a light kiss against the corner of Remus's mouth.

Remus inhaled sharply, tilted his head and put his mouth to Sirius's. Remus's lips were firm, and, God, already open, hot and open and it was **moon**, it was **mate**, it was **hunger** like only predators understood it. Fingers dug into his spine, but Sirius's own hands seemed unable to bring Remus close enough, hard enough. Sirius pushed Remus back against the counter, slid his hands under the open day robes to the shirt and trousers beneath, to Remus's hips. His fingers curved over muscles strong and lean. Sirius pulled Remus to him and rocked forward; they had to get close, close, even the small folds in the strained, tented cloth of their trousers felt good against Sirius's erection. He wanted to touch everything, but he couldn't bear to let go. Even a second's worth of release would be too much.

Remus felt the same; there was the smell of **now** in the hollow of his jaw. They thrust against one another, small bursts of strength and need, mouths parted and tongues darting, pressing, tasting, touching, hands pulling hard and close, the kitchen filled with words no human could read, a book of sensation and feeling and knowledge written in the air to last for days and days.

Days until it was time to be Secret-Keeper. Over and over, Sirius would catch these scents, and remember.

They were breathing hard, in tandem, making and catching.

There was no word for "betrayer."

Closer. God, closer--

**sex**

**sex**

**moon**

  
END


End file.
